Tag Archives: gay lifestyle

Rest assured: Seeing this play won’t make you gay … no matter what The Column says.

OK, I was gonna post my review this morning of Dallas Theater Center’s production of The Rocky Horror Show, but I decided to interrupt that plan to do something I never, ever do: Publicly call out another “review.” (Here’s my review.)

In the theater blog called The Column, Mary L. Clark reviewed the show … at least, that’s what they call it. The first quarter of the nearly 3,000 word piece is culled from Wikipedia, and after that, it delves into press releases and Playbill notes before, somewhere around paragraph 6, finally mentioning the current production.

All of this — and even such cringe-worthy malapropisms are referring to the “free sex generation” (she means, I assume, “free love” — everyone knows, sex is never free) — are tolerable. But as someone who directed my attention to this story pointed out, she refers to out director Joel Ferrell’s “lifestyle choice” being affected by the show.

Ummm…. what?

I really, really thought we had progressed past the point one’s innate sexual orientation was labeled — insultingly, ignorantly, regressively — as a “choice” and a “lifestyle.” She even concludes with this caveat: “I never thought about gender equality when seeing Rocky Horror. … Don’t be worried you are going to be pro-gay rallied or asked to make any choices other than to have a really good time.” OK, poor writing aside, this comes dangerously close to saying, “Rest assured: You can’t ‘catch gay’ watching this show.” It made me throw up a bit in my mouth.

(By the way: I loved the show. And it won’t make you gay anymore than watching Love, American Style as a kid made me straight.)

This weekend, a writer for the New York Times got vilified after referring to TV showrunner Shonda Rhimes (Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy) as an “angry black woman.” At least she didn’t say being a black woman was a “choice” or a “lifestyle.” I guess we still have a long way to go.

Linda Harvey

OK, this is the kind of right wing hatemongering that causes my head to hurt more than it usually does listening to rabid, anti-gay activists who use their religion in precisely the way that would make Jesus weep.

Linda Harvey, pictured, founder of Mission America, a conservative Christian activist group, denies the very existence of gay people … which seems odd, since she has devoted so much energy to vocalizing her opposition to gay people.

You can read the story here, but the essence seems to be: Gay people don’t exist, only gay activities. So, there’s a gay lifestyle, but it is only practiced by straight people who have lost their way. I guess. It doesn’t make much sense. It would be like saying, “Linda Harvey isn’t an ignorant bigot, she just practices ignorant bigoted behavior.”

Nah, she’s a human soul hole. Her bigotry goes directly to who she is: Sad, misguided, anti-Christian and mean.

I don’t know how this audio escaped me until now. KLIF drive-time jock Chris Krok ranted about Joel Burns recruiting kids to the “gay lifestyle” complete with prissy lisp. Apparently, while the rest of the nation was praising the honest open-heartedness of Burns’ confession, Krok felt that since “not one gay kid in Fort Worth” had committed suicide, Burns should not have wasted council time talking about “me, me, me.”

Clearly, Krok hates gay people, hate gay kids especially and doesn’t care how many die or are bullied. KLIF thinks this is appropriate entertainment for its listeners and advertisers. I don’t.

Listen to as much as you can; I found it hard to get past about 40 seconds but made it beyond 5 minutes eventually.

Lately the crazy train has picked up speed. I don’t know if it’s the upcoming midterm elections or people are scared by gay court victories or what, but we’re in a period of nutty.

Take David Barton. Please.

An evangelical minister, teacher at (Glenn) Beck University and former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party, Barton — a self-styled historian — is the founder of WallBuilders, a group devoted to the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation.

On his WallBuilders radio show recently, Barton discussed with Rick Green how health-conscious America is, regulating cigarettes and trans fats and salt, yet allowing something to slip through that is such an obvious threat to the health of Americans: Jersey Shore.

Barton said, “I mean, you go through all this stuff, sounds to me like that’s not very healthy. Why don’t we regulate homosexuality?” That’s the moment he boarded the crazy train.

Barton, the quack historian, cited a 1920s study that found nations that “rejected sexual regulation like with homosexuality” didn’t last “past the third generation from the time that they embraced it.”

Have gays been embraced? When will the third generation appear? It’s important to know when we’re supposed to make this country collapse. We have a schedule to keep.

Rick Green’s role in this production was to be properly aghast that the breathtakingly unhealthy gay lifestyle is promoted and protected.

That makes Green — recently a candidate for the Texas Supreme Court — the porter on the crazy train.

If David Barton wants the government to regulate gay sex, Andrew Shirvell’s goal is much more modest. But Shirvell is the conductor on the crazy train. For almost six months, Shirvell has railed in a blog against Chris Armstrong, the openly gay University of Michigan student assembly president.

Shirvell, a Michigan grad, accused Armstrong of so many things — including being anti-Christian, hosting a gay orgy, trying to recruit freshmen to be gay and, my favorite, sexually seducing a conservative student and influencing him to the point that he “morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda.”

Good strategy, that seduction. Armstrong should be able to convert everybody on campus by the time he’s 106.
During his anti-Armstrong crusade, Shirvell protested outside Armstrong’s house, and called him “Satan’s representative on the student assembly.”Paranoid much? All this would be plenty bad enough, but the fact that Shirvell is a Michigan assistant attorney general launches the affair into the realm of the bizarre. Rod Serling couldn’t have made this up.

Shirvell’s boss, Attorney General Mike Cox, cited the guy’s right to free speech, while also telling CNN he’s a “bully.” Cox said that Shirvell’s “immaturity and lack of judgment outside the office are clear.”

This is more than a case of bad judgment. Shirvell is obsessed with Armstrong’s homosexuality. I have to wonder if Shirvell — now on a voluntary leave of absence — is an immense closet case, or a few ties short of a railroad track.

Either explanation or both might apply to Fred Phelps, leader of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, but it’s his daughters who recently clambered on the crazy train.

Margie Phelps recently represented Westboro at the Supreme Court in the dispute over protests at military funerals, and after, while addressing the press, she and sister Shirley Phelps-Roper broke into song. They warbled a few lines of a variation on Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” Osbourne declared his displeasure that they used his music to advance “despicable beliefs.”

When the Prince of Darkness looks civilized compared to you, your caboose is loose.

Leslie Robinson assumes the Phelps daughters will never sing Indigo Girls. E-mail Robinson at lesarobinson@gmail.com, and visit her blog at GeneralGayety.com.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 15, 2010

The two dozen demonstrators had been protesting the policies of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has called homosexuals “satanic” and thwarted attempts to hold a gay pride rally in the city.

Police detained most, if not all, of those participating in Tuesday’s rally, which was held without a required permit near city hall.

The activists handcuffed themselves to a monument for the 13th-century Russian prince who founded Moscow, displayed a papier-mache mummy resembling Luzhkov and unfurled posters ridiculing the mayor and his billionaire wife, Yelena Baturina.

The activists said they objected to Luzhkov’s recent use of the word “fag,” and a court’s subsequent ruling that the word could not be deemed offensive.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, but anti-gay feelings remain strong. The country’s dominant Orthodox Church condemns gay lifestyle, and Orthodox activists have participated in dispersing previous gay rallies.

Activist Nikolai Alexeyev said in a telephone interview from inside a police van that he knew Tuesday’s rally would not be allowed.

“I had no hope it would end peacefully,” he said. “This lawlessness will go on as long as this lowlife rules the city.”

Luzhkov has been under increasingly strong pressure to resign in recent weeks, and a string of television shows on national television criticized him and his wife for alleged corruption and cronyism.

Last week, Alexeyev claimed he was kidnapped from a Moscow airport and held for more than two days by men he alleged were security agents.